My AMD Driver issues experience with the 5700 XT

[Courage]

Hey everybody, I'm one of the unlucky users who've had some issues with the 5700 XT, it's a shame as this card is truly a beast but it seems it chokes itself when it shouldn't. I wanted to shed some more light into these issues as I've never seen this tried or suggested before and my findings point to AMD's faulty Windows drivers. Before we get into what I found was a "solution", let's talk specs and the solutions I tried before, there's a TL;DR at the bottom too:

Ryzen 1600 @3.6 GHz XFX 5700 XT Thicc II Pro
Corsair LPX (2X8GB) @ 3000 MHz XMP Profile 2
Tomahawk Arctic B350
Thermaltake Smart 700W 80+ White Certified PSU
LG 29" 21:9 75hz 1080p

I think I tried anything and everything I could find on reddit and different forums. I started with this card on Windows 1909 and AMD drivers 20.4.2. There I had performance issues with The Witcher 3 (low usage), GTA V (low usage), Subnautica (low usage), Mirror's Edge Catalyst (stuttering), Kingdom Come: Deliverance (15FPS), ARK: Survival Evolved (15FPS), Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (45FPS) and The Division 2 (Stuttering).

That's where my quest for fixing this whole thing started. I reinstalled my drivers, disabled/enabled XMP, BIOS updates, Chipset Drivers, disabled/enabled OC, undervolted, overclocked, DDU, minimum GPU clock from 1500-1800MHz, uninstalled any overlay (Riva, Afterburner, even AMDs), using VSR, even reinstalled (Clean) Windows when the 2004 version became available to me.

After this whole ordeal and doing some steps multiple times I could only fix: The Division (Stuttering almost gone), Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Better performance, don't know if intended but get form 45-75 on Very High), Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (Fixed), ARK (Fixed, but not great performance although that's expected in ARK).

I decided to try something else, so I installed Linux and see if running the games in their Windows version through Steam Proton would deliver the same performance issues. Here are my results, keep in mind I always play with V-Sync on:

Game	Windows	Linux
The Witcher 3	50 FPS	75 FPS
GTA V	50 FPS	75 FPS
Mirror's Edge Catalyst	75 stutter to 60 every couple of seconds	75 FPS
Kingdom Come: Deliverance	40-75 FPS	40-75 FPS

I couldn't get Subnautica because the latest update to the Epic Games Store messed up game installation, but I really wanted to know the results with this game as I've really enjoyed it even with performance issues.

It seems that the issue (this is for the naysayers), is completely on AMD's drivers on Windows. I just wanted to share this because honestly, I was worried my card just had issues, but alas, I can prove it's not. Is it simple to install and run Linux? No, it's a whole thing too, and it took me hours to sort through some issues to get both Windows and Linux on the same drive and all that. Is it worth it? I don't know, it would a case by case thing, I know I'm happy now that I can finally get those pesky games to run well. This is not to say Linux or Windows is better, but to shed some light on AMD's drivers, I still will use Windows as I still play online games like R6 Siege and Apex, although Rocket League runs perfectly online.

I hope this helps some people, and if in need of some help setting up Linux I can help out a little.

TL;DR Installed Linux to try Windows games with issues, issues gone.

[BTGbullseye]

That's a 1st gen Ryzen, not the 1600 AF right? There are issues with those, and it looks like it's a major bottleneck to your system as well.

[Courage]

6 hours ago, BTGbullseye said:

That's a 1st gen Ryzen, not the 1600 AF right? There are issues with those, and it looks like it's a major bottleneck to your system as well.

I wouldn't think so, well it would be if I was playing at 144 hz or something like that, but it is 75 FPS in 1080p I aim for. And it's old games that have issues, so doesn't point to a bottleneck as usage in CPU hovers around 50%.

[-rascal-]

4 hours ago, Courage said:

I wouldn't think so, well it would be if I was playing at 144 hz or something like that, but it is 75 FPS in 1080p I aim for. And it's old games that have issues, so doesn't point to a bottleneck as usage in CPU hovers around 50%.

 

Have you tried disabling V-Sync, and just simply limit the FPS in-game (some games have this, while others don't) ?

What is the MAXIMUM Hotspot / Junction temperature on your 5700 XT ?

 

One disadvantage of regular old V-Sync is when you cannot maintain the FPS, and your FPS dips below that -- even briefly.

That will cause input lag, and stuttering.

In your situation with a 75 Hz monitor, if you drop down to 74 FPS (or lower), V-Sync will drop the refresh rate to next level down.

Depending on your monitor, that can be something like 45 Hz, or 30 Hz.

 

Quote

VSync is great when the frame rate exceeds the monitor’s refresh rate. However, if you come to a graphically intense moment, and the frame rate drops below the refresh rate, the graphics card will drop it down further to best match the monitor’s preferences. The result is an even bigger drop in frame rate during intense moments.

 

Quote

Stuttering occurs when frame rates fall below the VSync frame rate cap, which is typically 60 frames per second, matching the 60Hz refresh rate of most monitors and screens. When frame rates dip below the cap VSync locks the frame rate to the nearest level, such as 45 or 30 frames per second. As performance improves the frame rate returns to 60.

 

EDIT:

I'm also on Adrenalin 20.4.2, and just patched The Division 2 to the latest, and did a quick ~30 minute play-through.

Did not encounter any stuttering, while Hotspot temperature reached a maximum of 73*C on my 5700 XT.

Again, VSync is disabled, and Framerate limit is turned off.

I am still on Windows 1909, though.

[Courage]

3 hours ago, -rascal- said:

 

Have you tried disabling V-Sync, and just simply limit the FPS in-game (some games have this, while others don't) ?

What is the MAXIMUM Hotspot / Junction temperature on your 5700 XT ?

 

One disadvantage of regular old V-Sync is when you cannot maintain the FPS, and your FPS dips below that -- even briefly.

That will cause input lag, and stuttering.

In your situation with a 75 Hz monitor, if you drop down to 74 FPS (or lower), V-Sync will drop the refresh rate to next level down.

Depending on your monitor, that can be something like 45 Hz, or 30 Hz.

 

 

 

I understand this, but in games where stuttering happened it happenned with or without VSync, I could get 140 FPS, but then stutter for a fraction of a second and then back to 140. FreeSync didn't help either. But these same games through Linux didn't experience theses issues.

[Courage]

6 hours ago, -rascal- said:

EDIT:

I'm also on Adrenalin 20.4.2, and just patched The Division 2 to the latest, and did a quick ~30 minute play-through.

Did not encounter any stuttering, while Hotspot temperature reached a maximum of 73*C on my 5700 XT.

Again, VSync is disabled, and Framerate limit is turned off.

I am still on Windows 1909, though.

Hey thanks for going ahead on testing, as I described in the initial post, The Division 2 was one of the games that actually got better, so i got that going for me which is nice.

[BTGbullseye]

14 hours ago, Courage said:

I wouldn't think so, well it would be if I was playing at 144 hz or something like that, but it is 75 FPS in 1080p I aim for. And it's old games that have issues, so doesn't point to a bottleneck as usage in CPU hovers around 50%.

It really doesn't matter what framerate you're targeting when talking about 1st Gen Ryzen. There are hardware issues present in the original Zen architecture that are going to mess with your gaming performance. Zen+ and newer fix those problems. I would bet that were you to upgrade your CPU to a newer architecture Ryzen, your problems would disappear or significantly reduce.

[-rascal-]

8 hours ago, Courage said:

I understand this, but in games where stuttering happened it happenned with or without VSync, I could get 140 FPS, but then stutter for a fraction of a second and then back to 140. FreeSync didn't help either. But these same games through Linux didn't experience theses issues.

 

5 hours ago, Courage said:

Hey thanks for going ahead on testing, as I described in the initial post, The Division 2 was one of the games that actually got better, so i got that going for me which is nice.

 

I wonder if the extra headroom AMD drivers inherently have on Windows may be a contributing cause to why there is such a different between Windows/Linux.

 

[Courage]

On 6/23/2020 at 12:39 AM, BTGbullseye said:

It really doesn't matter what framerate you're targeting when talking about 1st Gen Ryzen. There are hardware issues present in the original Zen architecture that are going to mess with your gaming performance. Zen+ and newer fix those problems. I would bet that were you to upgrade your CPU to a newer architecture Ryzen, your problems would disappear or significantly reduce.

I'll be able to test that this week or the next at the latest, waiting on my 3600, B550 and 3600Mhz RAM!

[BTGbullseye]

3 hours ago, Courage said:

I'll be able to test that this week or the next at the latest, waiting on my 3600, B550 and 3600Mhz RAM!

Congrats! Welcome to the "Designed for PCIe 4.0" club!